Affective Infrastructures in Kenyan Maasai Schoolgirl Pregnancy Narratives

In this article, I explore how pregnant and parenting Maasai schoolgirls in rural Kenya inhabit emotions like regret, anger, and hope, and how these feelings act as social forces that shape perception, relationships, and action. Centering the narrative of a schoolgirl named Namelok, I examine schoolgirlhood as an affective orientation lived within and against Girls in Development discourse that links empowerment to delayed fertility and school completion. Namelok's story illustrates how Maasai girls navigate cultural expectations, structural inequality, and intimate relations from their position as daughters. Drawing on cultural theories of emotion, I offer a relational account of agency grounded in gendered and generational social worlds and argue for placing affect at the center of scholarship on adolescent pregnancy, schoolgirl motherhood, and African girlhood.